Atlas: A Tale of Five Wizards
by TheRealEvanSG
Summary: A pop star, a rebellious perv, an assassin, a karate master, and a shy-but-adventurous kid. They all lived vastly different lives in different corners of Earth, but they all have one thing in common: they disappeared at exactly the same time and date. Now, Samwise Kirkland wakes up in a mysterious world full of magic, without any memories... Book 1 of a series. OC/OC
1. Curiouser and Curiouser

**August 4th, Eastern Ohio, 8:28 A.M.**

It was early in the morning, and a cool fog still clung to the trees like a lifeline. The forest was already teeming with hidden life; there was the howl of coyotes hunting their prey, the songs of early-to-rise birds, a rustle of dried leaves as a family of deer bounded over a rotting log. The sharp aroma of pine trees mixed with that of wildflowers and the unpleasant stank of a skunk.

_Stank of a skunk, _Samwise Kirkland mused, grinning. _Hey! That rhymes! Sort of._

He stepped on an unfortunate spider without knowing it.

The teen didn't actually go by Samwise. Nah, that was the name of one of the Hobbits in his father's favorite book series, _The Lord of the Rings_. It was a great trilogy but nonetheless gave him an embarrassing name. Instead, he signed all his papers as "Sam," without the "wise." Everyone had called him that since kindergarten. Well, when they weren't making fun of him, which wasn't very often.

That was why he was out here, in the forest behind his house. He liked animals much better than other people. Animals, he'd found, wouldn't betray you... except for spiders. Those little buggers were never to be trusted.

Sam pushed deeper into the forest.

Okay, he wasn't spending one of the last Monday mornings of summer here for that reason alone. Last night, his dad had told him a story over dinner. Before the American settlers came and claimed the land, the American Indians populated the area. There many legends stemming from those times, but one in particular caught Dad's eye. The old Indians apparently thought that a hole in the ground just a few miles from Sam's home was holy - - early cave writing perfectly depicted the spot, and a scroll locked in an ornate wooden box said that the hole, now called Old Man's Shaft, led to a place of magic and wonder.

Of course, it was highly unlikely that was real. Geologists had scanned the area and reported that the Shaft definitely had a concrete bottom. Perhaps not literally concrete, but you know. A definite bottom located on EARTH.

Even so, there was still some mystery regarding Old Man's Shaft. Every year, at least one team of cavers went out to it. Most of them were never seen again, and those that were babbled insanely about dragons and evil wizards and people becoming enslaved to raise said evil wizard once more. Naturally, the officials decided the cave was filled with a hallucinatory, possibly poisonous gas and declared it unsafe.

Sam's dad didn't think so.

Sam's dad was also of American Indian decent.

So, in a nutshell, the teen was here to prove everybody wrong. He wanted to find out whether Old Man's Shaft really was some sort of portal. It sounded like a fantastic adventure, and although he was fourteen, Sam had never quite grown out of the dreaming-about-adventures phase. And thus, he found himself trekking through the lush forest, lugging all the equipment one would need to repel down a 400-foot rock wall. He probably wouldn't need all 400 feet of rope, but it never hurt to be safe.

"Wait until I find that world of magic," Sam laughed. "Maybe I'll befriend a wizard. Maybe I'll become a wizard myself! Ha! Dumb old Jimmy would never be able to make fun of me again! If he did, I'd introduce him to... to... a horde of ten thousand dragons! Ha! Ha... Ha. I thought I'd be there by now... haven't I been walking for almost an hour?"

A branch whipped him in the nose. He stumbled forward, sputtering indignantly.

"Ow!" Sam complained, nursing his now-red nose. He rubbed away the momentary pain, and when he looked in front of him again, he saw a small hole in the ground.

It was about twelve feet wide, enough four two adults to lay horizontally across. It was dark, incredibly dark, as if it had eaten up all the daylight and sent it to oblivion. There was a strange, unwelcoming air to it. As Sam stared, a squirrel darted out towards the hole like it was going to attempt a suicide jump, but suddenly stopped barely a foot away. Then it spirited itself away.

This was it.

Sam swallowed. Old Man's Shaft was creepier than he'd imagined. How deep was it to be that dark?

He shrugged aside his unease and went to work. First, he slipped off his green backpack of supplies and pulled out a small hammer and a tent pin. He hammered the pin firmly into the ground. Next, Sam replaced the hammer with a long coil of rope and looped it through the pin, tying a knot tight enough to make a Boy Scout proud. He wrapped the other end of the rope around his waist and did the same, and then winced. It felt like he'd accidentally cut off blood circulation.

Well, it was better to cut off circulation than to fall out of the rope.

Sam made sure he had a flashlight, firmly gripped the rope, tugged on it a few times to make sure the tent pin wasn't going anywhere, and finally began to walk backwards to the edge of the Shaft.

For a few seconds, he just stood there, with his heels hanging in space, but the balls of his feet planted on the ground. Sam gulped and wondered if this was a good idea after all. Nervously, he took his first step into the yawning abyss. He was now hanging on the wall of Old Man's Shaft, like he was rock climbing with no hands, but the taut rope kept him in place. He sighed in relief and descended several more feet.

After about ten minutes, Sam was starting to get the hang of it. He was now repelling a good fifteen feet each step, though he did wonder how much deeper he would have to go. After all, he had to be running out of rope! He was surprised he'd made it this far, actually.

_Well, _Sam thought with a grin,_ at least the rope hasn't broken!__ I passed some pretty sharp rocks..._

Perhaps he shouldn't have thought that.

There was an audible SNAP!, and the rope suddenly went slack. Sam's upper body, which had previously been supported by the rope, quickly fell, carrying his legs and feet with it.

With a shout of surprise and terror, Samwise Kirkland tumbled into the darkness.

* * *

**August 5th, off the coast of Kamakura, Japan, 6:37 P.M.  
**

Alanji Welwood stared up at the ceiling of her parents' yacht. The boat bobbed up and down on the waves, but she wasn't enjoying the view above deck like she should've been. And would've been, if it had been any other evening.

Too bad that this morning, her parents had dropped the worst bombshell a parent could. (Besides an actual bomb, of course.)

She was adopted.

Alanji had always suspected she was different from them. She didn't look remotely like them; her blonde hair was unnatural for a true Japanese. Also, Japanese stuff just didn't come as easily to Alanji as the rest of the kids in her school. She did, however, excel in English and (strangely enough) German. She thought her fellow students were cool and colorful, but just couldn't fit in, no matter how many friends she made. Her fame didn't help matters much; she was the lead singer of a band so good, at least four or five of their songs were featured as anime openings/endings. Not that she really understood the appeal of anime.

Even her last name was a hint. _Welwood_ was not her parent's last name, because Dad was a true Japanese. They had claimed it was her grandparents' on her mother's side; Mom was an American immigrant who had flown overseas to design video games for Nintendo. Mom's parents had died just a year before Alanji was born, and they had allegedly put down her last name as _Welwood_ in honor of them. That made no sense, though. And after she'd done a little research this morning, Alanji found out that her grandparents were still alive and happy. And currently off on some archaeological dig in South India. (They were still going strong, despite being almost eighty years old.)

There was a particularly violent rock of the boat, causing a golden pigtail to fall in her face. Alanji huffed and brushed it away.

Her phone buzzed. Alanji blinked and looked down at it to see a message from her drummer, Suzumiya Yuki.

_You okay, Alanji?_ Yuki had texted. _I only just got your text a few minutes ago. Dude, that sucks! And hey, your parents do know that there's supposed to be a major storm out there, right?_

A major storm? There hadn't even been the slightest of showers.

Even as Alanji thought that, rain pattered against her porthole window. She looked out it in surprise, only to see the sky darkening and the waves getting larger.

The door to her room opened.

"Ali!" her mom - - no, wait, _adoptive_ mom - - called, poking her head in. "There's a storm coming. A really large one."

Alanji grinned. She had always loved the forces of nature. Besides, even though she had just found out something life-changing, she couldn't be mad at Mom and Dad forever. She rushed past her mom and up the stairs to the deck, saying, "I'll be up here if you need me!"

"But, honey, it's dangerous!"

Too late. The pop idol was already grasping the smooth metal railing, leaning out over the choppy seas with excitement. And boy, were they choppy! With each passing minute, the waves grew anywhere from half a foot to a full twelve inches. The wind was picking up rapidly, howling as it ripped across the motorized yacht. The sky was now completely overcast, covered in black cotton balls that expelled buckets of rain each second. Alanji whooped, reveling in the thrill that came with being on the open sea in the middle of a potentially dangerous storm.

She was a bit of a thrill-seeker.

But something was wrong. Suddenly, the ocean bulged and started to curl upward. Water built itself into a high wall that easily passed the height of the deck, then the roof of the living quarters. As Alanji's eyes grew wider, and her wide grin changed to a gaping _O_ of shock, the massive wave crested mere feet from their ship, which was a dwarf in comparison.

The last thing she tasted was a mouthful of saltwater. Then there was a sharp impact on the back of her head, and Alanji blacked out.

* * *

**August 5th, Chicago, 7:38 A.M.**

_Breathe in, breathe out. Don't think about the target as a living person. Pretend you're not aiming a perfectly loaded and perfectly deadly sniper rifle at the current President of the United States. Pretend you're pointing a water gun at a mannequin. Breathe in, breathe out._

It was hopeless, Leanne Malone, better known to the criminal underworld as "Black Raven," decided.

Her hands shook as her finger hovered over the gun's trigger. She'd received plenty of orders to eliminate all kinds of wealthy people before, and she'd completed the assassinations flawlessly. Who would suspect a normal-looking, healthy thirteen-and-a-half year old girl to have been behind the shootings of England's richest man, Russia's Secretary of State, and the Egyptian Ambassador, among others? The young teen had pulled off countless missions and had been doing so for years.

Kidnapped by a terrorist organization called MEDUSA at a young age, Leanne had barely had time to live a normal life. She remembered very few details about life outside assassinating. She only knew the gentle touch of a mother, the sibling rivalries with an older brother, the warmth of a father's kind smile, and the joy of birthday parties in fleeting dreams. The most kindness shown to her in recent memory was about five years ago, when one of the terrorists, named James, had momentarily shown pity to her and bought her a Pillow Pet at the local Wal-Mart. He'd gotten a job in the jungles of South America soon after. Nobody had every heard from him again. Since that day, Leanne had had a strange weakness for all things cute... especially pandas.

Even though it was early in the morning, the sun was already shining brightly.

_How ironic,_ Leanne thought.

A gust of wind blew across the rooftop she was currently squatting on. She'd been in Chicago for three days now, scouting out the area for the best vantage point, making sure she had an ideal escape route, and double-checking that she'd gotten the President's destination right - - and the wind had hardly stopped the entire time. Leanne had heard people call it the Windy City before, but had never quite understood how _windy_ it was. It made sharpshooting someone a thousand feet away rather difficult.

Not that she actually enjoyed the barbaric business.

Leanne shuddered at the thought of her bullets piercing President Jackson's skull. _Okay, Lee, calm down,_ she told herself hastily. _You're not killing him, really. You're just... putting him to sleep for a while. Yeah. Putting him to sleep. With a heavy sniper rifle. Just... calm down. Deep breath. In, out, in, out._

She squinted through the scope to make sure she was on target. Taking into account the strong wind, the added weight of the muffler, the kickback, and the distance of the shot, was it aimed in a spot that would ensure her bullet smashed through President Jackson's skull? A thousand feet away, through the glass window of a medium-sized, modern building, the President, his son, and his entourage of Secret Service agents were enjoying a concert for a new classical music group. Leanne had done her homework and learned that they were listening to a live performance of the soundtrack for the son's favorite video game. A few weeks ago, the White House had received an invitation in the mail from the leader of the group herself.

With tumultuous fingers, she gently pulled the trigger just as the classical band hit their last chord.

The window cracked, but didn't shatter completely. Cries of fear and confusion rose up from the streets below. Leanne tensed. A minute later, men in black suits rushed out of the building in full badass mode, several carrying the limp body of the President. Leanne peered through the sniper rifle's scope and swore. He was clutching his shoulder, pale but alive.

For the first time in her life, she'd missed.

Leanne swore. Quickly, she threw the large rifle down to the floor of the roof and lay flat on her back so she wouldn't be seen. She disassembled the gun - - it was the newest model, able to be broken apart and put back together in less than a minute. The young assassin slipped the pieces into a slick, black, empty violin case (her cover story was that she was a musician from out of town, hoping to get some money to start a band herself, and two of the adult assassins in the terrorist organization acted as her parents).

"Okay, go, go, go!" she hissed to herself.

Leanne scooped the violin case off the cement roof, stood up, and dashed for the door to the stairwell. She threw the heavy door open, heart pounding, adrenaline rushing a hundred miles per hour. As she raced down the stairs, descending floor after empty floor (she had chosen an abandoned office firm), Leanne cursed the name of every god she could think of.

Why, _why_ did she have to miss her one shot today? Her, ahem, "friends" at MEDUSA had promised her freedom if she could complete this last mission. Besides that, they'd also sworn to stay away from her family, whom they'd threatened to kill if she made any attempts to escape. On the flip side, they had told her that if she failed, they would ensure nobody would see them again. And just to make matters interesting, they'd only provided her with one bullet.

_"A tragic accident,"_ they had said. _"It'll be all over the national papers."_

Apparently, her parents were well-respected enthusiasts in technology, and were even selling their own popular video game consoles in a shocking cooperation with both Nintendo and Sony. They had made headlines across the world multiple times. Leanne knew that they were doing everything in their power to find her and rescue her, but so far they had failed.

Finally, she reached the bottom floor. Lugging her heavy "violin" case with her, she pumped her legs like pistons and tore out the door, into the street that was now filled with panicking pedestrians. Cars had had to stop so they wouldn't accidentally run over somebody. People were running about crazily. They might not have heard a gunshot thanks to Leanne's state-of-the-art muffler, but they had definitely heard the window crack, and the Secret Service searching everyone and everything wasn't helping anything. Leanne breathed a deep sigh of relief. Maybe she could use the confusion to sneak in close to the President, use her throwing knives to finish him off. They'd get her for sure, but at least she could spare her family from MEDUSA's inescapable - -

"Hey, you! Freeze, drop the weapon, and put your hands in the air!"

Leanne froze. Icy terror washed down her spine and made her shackles raise on end. Unconsciously, she'd already slipped one of her throwing knives out of her jeans pocket and started to make for the President. It slipped out of her hand along with her violin case and fell with a clang to the street.

Slowly, Leanne turned around.

A row of men in sleek black suits were pointing rifles at her.

_Shit, shit, shit!_ she mentally howled. _I'm screwed!_

The row of Secret Service agents parted, and a man with an impressive pompadour stepped forward. In spite of the situation, Leanne couldn't help but find that hilarious. Didn't he know pompadours had died in the '60s? Only stupid people with too much forehead had them. Despite the whacky hair and lack of a gun, the man was heavily built and broad shouldered. He looked like he could go a few rounds with a wooly mammoth and barely break a sweat.

"I am the Head of CIA, Fred Johnson," he stated gruffly. "Are you Black Raven?"

Leanne gaped. _Wait, what!? How do they know my codename?_

Well, she could at least confuse them for a moment to think of an escape plan. Thanking MEDUSA for the first time in her life, she used her Foreign Languages training to switch into fluid French: "_Je n'aime pas les corbeaux noirs!_" I don't like black ravens, she'd said.

Agent Pompadour huffed and narrowed his beady eyes. "I don't care whether you like them or not. I'm asking if you are the assassin known as Black Raven, who has coldly killed more than thirty government officials and business executives, as well as Justin Beiber... though I can't say I can really blame you for the last one. Anyway, I've been hunting you for months. Imagine my surprise when I received an anonymous tip that you were in the area, carrying a violin case and probably a knife!"

Leanne's eyes widened. She might have been popular in the criminal underworld, but nobody other than the top members of MEDUSA knew where she was going to be today, or what she looked like, or what she was carrying. That could only mean that they had betrayed her! They had never meant to keep their promise in the first place! Leanne's mind raced. But she was of no use to them locked up in Federal jail. MEDUSA would probably pull some strings and get her out of there, only to basically enslave her for life. Not to mention that her family might as well have been dead already.

A new surge of strength flooded her veins.

_No way!_ she cried mentally. _I can't let them die! I don't even know who they are, but... they're still my family!_

Closing her eyes, she swooped down and blindly scooped up the fallen knife. Cracks of gunfire threatened to break Leanne's eardrums, and there were more shouts from the street. With a shout, she flung the knife in the direction of the President, who was being swiftly carried away by two Secret Service agents. Just as the hilt of the knife brushed the tip of her fingers, a sharp burst of pain ripped through her chest.

The teen assassin cried out in agony.

The knife went spinning out into the street, bouncing harmlessly off a Stop sign but scaring the hell out of quite a few pedestrians.

Defeat washed over her like an ocean of despair.

Her vision was quickly blackening. Her head hit the street.

As she lost consciousness, her last thought was the cruel knowledge that it was all over.

* * *

**August 5th, the Merry Martial Arts Dojo just outside of London, England, 1:22 P.M.  
**

Sweat poured down his face. His breaths came heavily as he winced and groaned. The teen's knuckles were red and sore from too much impact, but he didn't stop or even falter. Instead, Abbey Borkenau whaled on the punching bag even harder.

There was the click of his Sensei snapping shut his stopwatch.

Abbey slumped to the blue mat, panting from the exertion.

"Good work out today," Sensei approved. "You got a real sweat going, Abbey-kun. Keep it up and you'll make this year's Olympics for sure. That triple-kick you performed was amazing!"

The teen gulped for air. "T-Thanks."

The two were the only people in the dojo; it didn't officially open to the public until a few hours later. Abbey was a seventeen-year-old, though his short stature and complete innocence made him look around fourteen. His strawberry blonde hair was styled so that it was curly. He was dressed in a simple, white karate _gi_ - - the usual martial artist uniform, almost like a kimono but plain and for men. Around his waist was a black belt with ten golden straps of paper wrapped around one end, signifying that he was a tenth degree _Dan_... and that was the highest level you could get in karate. (You pronounced it like _dawn_, not like the name Dan.) He was currently in training for the next summer Olympics. Thankfully, whoever ran the incredible event had finally decided it was a worthy enough sport to add to the list.

Sensei, an old man with white hair, a black _gi_, and only a seventh degree _D__an_, sighed and sat down on the mat beside him.

"Why do you try so hard?" he asked, rubbing his head.

Abbey looked at him questioningly. "What do you mean? If I don't train as hard as I could, I'll never make the Olympics."

"I mean, why do you want to get into them so badly?"

"Oh," the teen said. He frowned and stared at the white wall of the dojo. "Well... when I stumbled upon your dojo a few years ago, I never dreamed I could learn as much as I have. But you never gave up on me, even though I was a total failure at this stuff for the first few months."

The old man snorted. "Ha! You couldn't even earn your yellow belt until your fourth month."

Abbey laughed. "Yeah, I sucked back then! But you believed in me and gave me the confidence to keep training. Thanks to that, I was able to fend off those delinquents who tried to be all weird with me." (The teen had a rather feminine physique, and was often mistaken for a young and adorable girl. Add to that his innocence and even name, Abbey, and it confused just about everybody who met him.) "I wanted to repay you in some way. When I heard that your business was declining and that martial arts had been listed as an Olympic sport this year, I realized that if I could get the gold, or even just the bronze, the popularity of this dojo would skyrocket. Everybody interested in karate would want to come here!"

"You idiot," Sensei sighed, smiling. Abbey chuckled awkwardly and rubbed the side of his head.

After the teen had caught his breath, he blinked and said, "Hey, wait a minute. Didn't you say something last week about a scroll containing instructions on a secret training technique guaranteed to make the user stronger?"

"Well... yes," the old man coughed. "It's an ancient Chinese scroll that I found hidden in a cave years ago, and I keep it in a puzzle box in my office. But it's also very dangerous. Plus, I don't know of anybody in recorded history who has attempted to undergo its methods and succeeded."

Abbey tilted his head. "So how does that make it dangerous?"

"A curse is inscribed upon the scroll: _Anyone who fails this technique shall never know the light of Earth's Ten Suns again._ In Chinese mythology, the world had not one Sun, but ten."

"Weird. So, what, are you gonna show me the scroll?"

The old man's eyes bugged out. "Hell no, Abbey! Are you a _baka_?"

Sensei was Japanese, and sometimes he would slip into his home tongue.

Abbey turned on his best puppy dog eyes. "Please? I swear I'll be safe!"

Sensei's eye twitched, and he looked like he was doing his best not to give in. But Abbey was a trap through and through, and his puppy dog eyes were deadlier than an army of three hundred Spartans. The old man's will broke and he sighed.

"Oh, all right," the seventh degree black belt sighed, standing up and walking to the back of the room, where a desk sat perpendicular to the wall. "I'll show you the scroll. Well, not the original scroll itself. I translated it into English, except for the bottom few lines. They were written in many languages, so I just copied the English-looking version."

As he rummaged through the desk, opening drawers and pulling out random papers, Abbey grinned widely and couldn't help but giggle a little to himself. If he could learn this mysterious technique, then he would be able to repay his debt to Sensei for sure! He tapped his feet against the blue mat anxiously and wiped sweat off his brow. Finally, the old man he had become good friends with came back, waving a piece of faded parchment with elegantly scripted cursive on it. Abbey blinked.

"Why does it look like it was written in Camelot?" he asked.

Sensei laughed awkwardly. "Well, actually, I just felt like it should be more mysterious than it was."

"Oh."

He handed it to Abbey, who held it in both hands and started reading it excitedly. It read:

_Only the greatest Karate Master shall achieve the reward this technique brings.__Only those with a Heart most Pure shall receive this reward.  
__Choosing the hardest path reaps the most rewards.  
__The Path ahead is a road filled with both Darkness and Joy.  
__Say the following sentences aloud:_

_Luo sym evigi  
__Flesreh Cigam dnas dogeth ot  
__Ytefas eht erusnell iwi  
__Tfig eht tuohtiw llafo_

Abbey gaped. "Those lines looked like English to you?"

"Well, they were written perfectly in our alphabet. I figured that they were in some kind of code that I couldn't decipher. Or perhaps they were just simply meant to be read like that."

The teen martial artist wondered how the Ancient Chinese knew the modern English alphabet. Writing it off as Marco Polo's fault, he shrugged and started chanting the four strange lines. As he did so, he felt a tingle in the back of his neck and an almost irresistible urge to scratch it. He was able to ignore it for the most part at first, but as he got closer and closer to the last word, the itchiness and tingly feeling grew. Abbey pouted as he read the paragraph. The itchiness was spreading from the small of his back to his entire being. He desperately wanted to relieve the annoying feeling. He spoke the last word almost as a shout - - "LLAFO!"

The itchiness stopped, although the tingly feeling was still there.

"I'm not really sure how that was supposed to help you become stronger," Sensei deadpanned. "It sounded like a bunch of gibberish."

Abbey nodded, rubbing his head. "And it was just a bunch of words, no instructions other than to read a few lines."

They sat there awkwardly for a few beats, not really sure what to do.

"I don't really know what I was expecting to happen," Sensei muttered.

Abbey uncrossed his legs and stood up without using his hands. He was rather short and had only had one growth spurt, back when he was in seventh grade. "Well, I guess it's time for me to leave, then," he said, smiling even though the Chinese method clearly hadn't worked at all. He bowed to the old man politely.

The old man bowed back. "_Sayonara_," he said distractedly.

The almost adorably feminine boy started to walk to the door, still wearing his karate _gi_. He would change when he got home. But as he neared the door, the itchiness returned, this time more intense than before. The tingly feeling was a lot stronger, too. Abbey frowned and scratched his arm, but it didn't help any. It was almost like every molecule of his body was being vibrated back and forth at incredible speeds.

Had his Sensei watched him leave, he would've noticed that his young student's body was starting to fade. But he was busy examining the scroll, which Abbey had returned to him, to make sure they hadn't missed anything.

And then, quite suddenly, Abbey Borkenau simply wasn't there.

* * *

**August 5th, Behrensville, Germany, 10:46 P.M.  
**

The night was dark, silent, and peaceful. Nestled in between two medium-sized mountains, the villagers enjoyed some isolation from the rest of the world and kept to themselves, and it was late at night anyway. Nearly everyone in the small town of Behrensville was sleeping, except for one person.

Tyrone Ruth was in his family's barn, milking the cows.

The Ruths lived just outside the main town on a small farm that Mr. Ruth's father had passed down to him. The Ruths had owned the farm for generations past and would own it for generations to come, if Mr. Ruth had anything to say about it. Unfortunately, Tyrone hated farming.

"Why," he grunted, "do I have to be up milking these dumb old cows!? Can't they just hold it in until the morning?"

Scratch that. Tyrone _despised_ farming.

And he was damn tired.

Did we mention he hated farming?

"I - - hate - - farming," Tyrone said, milking the cow harder with each word.

The cow mooed in admonishment.

The boy scowled. "Shut up."

The cow mooed louder, but this time it was more like a _WHAT THE HELL!?_ kinda thing. The other animals in the barn, like horses and chickens, woke up and started freaking out, too. Soon the barn was filled with the various panicked sounds of farm animals. Tyrone scowled and looked up to yell at them all some more, but what he saw out the cow's window made him stop and stare.

A giant meteorite was falling to Earth, blazing worse than a bonfire for dragons.

His eyes nearly popped out of his head. "WHAT THE FUCK!?" he yelled, his jaw dropping to the ground. He definitely hadn't heard anything about a meteorite falling in this area, or in any area, lately! It was burning so brightly, it was almost a mini Sun, lighting up the mountains and village like daylight. Tyrone had to look away. It was hurting his eyes too much to look at it for long.

_BOOM!_

The impact shook the countryside. The teen lost his balance and fell over, accidentally putting his hand in a pile of cow manure.

"Shit," he mumbled.

Tyrone wiped his crappy hand off on his jeans, then wondered what he should do. There was no way people hadn't woken up from that massive impact. It had been an earthquake from space! Someone was going to find that giant hunk of space junk sooner or later, and he'd heard that some meteor chunks could sell for hundreds or even thousands of euros.

Well, first come, first serve.

Tyrone guessed that it had fallen somewhere on the other side of the mountain.

"What was that?" his Dad called groggily from inside the house.

He pulled on his black leather jacket, which he had hung up on a post of the horse's pen, and dashed out of the barn, lying, "Dunno, but it made one of the horses freak and run off towards the mountain! I'm going after it on my bike!"

"Okay, but be careful. There's wolves out there."

"I know, Dad."

Tyrone's bike was still leaning against the side of the small farm house, the way he'd left it earlier this morning. He swung onto it and peddled down the Ruths' dirt driveway. The cool night air rushed by his face. The trip to the other side of the mountain would take a couple of hours, let alone coming back, but sleeping could wait. There was cash just sitting on the ground!

The first trip lasted until midnight. Going up the mountain was the hardest part; biking back down was extremely easy. For most people, it might've seemed like an impossibly daunting task, but for Tyrone, who had been biking around the countryside since a young age, the only daunting thing was that he wouldn't get to sleep until four. In the MORNING.

Finally, he came out of the bike path that went through the forest of the woods on the other side, and what he saw made him brake and just stare for a few seconds.

Less than six hundred meters away was a ginormous crater in the ground, about 30 meters wide and probably five hundred feet deep. All of it was charred to a shiny, onyx black, as well as some of the surrounding vegetation and earth. And in the center of the crater lay a large boulder, still glowing red and steaming. The entire area stank like that chicken manure other farmers would sometimes spread (and that was about the worst smelling thing on the planet). Tyrone gagged.

"Well, I'm here now," he said to himself. "Just some smelly stuff isn't going to turn me back!"

He kicked the brake lock into place, swung off the bike, and was about to run over to the crater when something shiny caught his eye. Tyrone paused and looked at the ground by his left foot.

Sitting there was what looked like a purple crystal.

"Sweet!" he cheered, grinning widely and bending down to get a closer look at it. "I wonder how much it's worth? And... why it's purple."

The crystal was catching the moonlight in a way that made it appear to glow in an otherworldly nature. Tyrone blinked. Weird. He hadn't thought there was that much moonlight. He reached out for the crystal and picked it up...

And it glowed even brighter before lifting out of his palm and slamming into his chest.

* * *

The disappearances all happened in different parts of the world, to five teens of different ages and vastly different backgrounds. One was normal but shy. Another was an adopted pop idol who felt isolated from the world. A third was an assassin who hated killing. The fourth was a feminine young man who was a master of karate. The fifth and last was a rebellious boy hoping to earn a little extra cash. None of them knew each other, but they all had one thing in common - - they were displeased with their current life. Although they were scattered across the globe, the five teens disappeared at exactly the same time.

And a world of magic and wonder would receive five powerful new citizens.


	2. Mountains and Monsters

**Hello everybody! If you're still reading this, give yourself a round of applause. You know what a good fanfiction looks like. ****_The Atlas Chronicles_**** is my newest fanfiction series and was inspired by several of my previous fics - - namely ****_OP Full Blast_**** and ****_The Gravity Fallen_****. I had attempted to do something like this several other times but had ended up scrapping it. Not today! This time I'm actually diving into the world of Fairy Tail fanfiction for the first time, and it's going to be an awesome adventure! From here on out, it's going to be mostly Sam-centric, with a few POV switches. Here are my replies to reviews on the previous chapter:  
**

**Black Flash:** Thanks, man! I try. XD Well, apparently I'm updating now. I hope you enjoy this new chapter! :D

**Chapter 2 start!**

* * *

Where am I? Who am I?  


Mountains and Monsters!

* * *

**Previously on ****Atlas: A Tale of Five Wizards****:**

_The disappearances all happened in different parts of the world, to five teens of different ages and vastly different backgrounds. One was normal but shy. Another was an adopted pop idol who felt isolated from the world. A third was an assassin who hated killing. The fourth was a feminine young man who was a master of karate. The fifth and last was a rebellious boy hoping to earn a little extra cash. None of them knew each other, but they all had one thing in common - - they were displeased with their current life. Although they were scattered across the globe, the five teens disappeared at exactly the same time._

_And a world of magic and wonder would receive five powerful new citizens._

Cold. So cold.

That was Sam's immediate reaction to his current surroundings. Everything was cold, so cold he could practically feel it in his bones. It felt like he was a human Polar Pop.

He was laying in something cold, soft, and somewhat wet. His body shivering violently, Samwise shook off the little voice in the back of his head that whispered to just fall back asleep and forced himself to stand up and open his eyes, which were currently squeezed shut (it almost felt like they were _frozen_ shut). Just getting into a sitting position felt like walking a marathon. His muscles groaned like they hadn't been used in days and his bones cracked unintentionally, resulting in a highly uncomfortable feeling like a million tiny needles stabbing his entire body. His teeth refused to stop chattering.

When he opened his eyes, Sam gaped.

He was sitting on the side of a tall, unfamiliar and extremely snowy mountain, which was in the middle of an equally snowy mountain range. Above him was more mountain and white, puffy clouds that drifted lazily across the sky. Beneath him was a series of dangerous-looking cliffs, cracks, and loose rocks. A misshapen snow angel dented the snow he'd just been laying in. A bitingly cold wind howled as it danced around the mountainside. Sam shivered again. What was he doing in such a crazy environment? Sam couldn't see any form of life around - - the mountain range blocked the horizon from view - - and he was seated so high up on the mountain that the air was thin, making it hard to breathe.

And to make matters worse, he was wearing _blue jeans_, a _T-shirt, and sneakers_.

Oh, and there was a backpack laying near him, a little further down the mountain and to the left.

Hoping that 1) the backpack was his, and 2) there were warmer and drier clothes in it, Sam scrambled on all fours over to it. He tugged the nearly-frozen zipper open with tumultuous fingers. The teen winced; his fingers were blue, and he hoped he didn't have frost bite. That was bad, right? He couldn't really remember if it was right now, but that didn't matter. What did matter was getting something warm to wear.

Unfortunately, there wasn't much in the backpack: Just a few icy granola bars, an apple, some rope, a small hammer, and a small, rectangular device. The latter looked very thin and had a bumpy and black cover on three sides, as well as a shiny, black, smaller rectangle in the middle of the uncovered side, a black dot above the smaller rectangle, circular pad-like thing below. Sam wondered what it was. It definitely felt familiar, but for the life of him, he couldn't seem to place the name. Did it somehow make heat?

Sam lifted up the curious object, and somehow wasn't surprised that it was as thin as he'd thought. It was so small and thin that it fit in his hand perfectly. As if he'd done it a thousand times before, his thumb slid down the smaller, black rectangle to the circular pad beneath it, then pressed down.

Sam almost dropped it in surprise.

To his shock, the rectangle had suddenly changed colors completely. Now it showed a slightly grey picture of a wave cresting against blue skies. It also told the time, 2:53 in the afternoon, and the date, Tuesday, July 4th. At the bottom of the wave was a white button with an arrow pointing to the right, and the words _Slide to unlock_ popped out at him like they were doing The Wave at a football game. Warmth rippled throughout his body.

Fumbling, Sam dropped it back into the bag, still shocked at the sudden change of colors.

"Okay," he muttered. "That was weird. When I pressed that button, I got warm and the... screen?... changed."

He shook his head in wonder. Well, at least he wasn't cold anymore. There might have been a storm going on, but since pressing the button on the Device, as he decided to call it, he didn't even feel it anymore. The biting wind didn't bother him in the slightest.

Sam looked down. "Now for a way to get off this mountain."

He needed to find some sort of civilization.

Problem Numero Uno: Below him was a plethora of cliffs, gullies, caves, and other dangerous mountainy-things. It looked like it would take forever to navigate, or at least a very long time... and that was just this mountain alone. There was still an entire mountain _range_ beyond this.

And Sam only had a few icy granola bars and an apple to keep him alive.

The future looked very bright indeed.

He sighed. He might as well start down the mountain now - - he was warm again and his fingers didn't look blue anymore, but he didn't know how long that would last. With that thought, Sam zipped up the backpack and slung it on his back, then took his first few careful steps downward.

The snow was slippery, and he was wearing only sneakers, so it was hard to gain any traction. The cold might not have been bothering him, but the high wind still tried its hardest to knock him off balance and/or sweep his feet out from underneath him. The giant, pointy pyramid of rock was a bit creepy, too. As he descended further and further, his legs getting sorer and sorer, Sam noticed several snow-leaden, dead trees. They were like extras from some winter themed horror movie set. Hollow and frozen like they were petrified, the long-dead trees were filled with holes that made the wind howl when it passed through. And unless it was his imagination, Sam was sure he heard other howls and calls as well... Howls and calls that were most definitely not of any natural origin.

Sam shivered.

As he stumbled down the mountain, the teen had plenty of time to think. He wondered how he came to be on this mountain in the first place. He certainly didn't remember climbing anything nearly this high in the recent past. The last thing he remembered was...

He blinked.

That was strange. Sam couldn't recall what he had been doing before waking up on the mountain. His head didn't hurt either, so it wasn't like he'd been drunk.

He stopped walking and thought back. Now that he noticed his apparent forgetfulness, which felt unnatural for him, he realized other things: There wasn't a whole lot he _did_ remember. For instance, what kind of place was his hometown? What was it called? Did he even have a hometown? When was his birthday? (Although that one did come a little later - - November 7th.) Who was his best friend? Did he own a pet? Sam was getting truly panicked now. He didn't even know the names of his _parents_.

There was another roar, like a low, animalistic grumble.

Sam paused and took a few deep breaths.

"Okay," he said to himself. "If I can't remember anything, there's no use worrying about it. Maybe... maybe it's some kind of reaction to the cold or the high altitude." That didn't sound very plausible, but it was better than saying he had amnesia or something worse. "I guess I must be hungry, though, so might as well get something to eat."

He took off the backpack and dug around in it for some food. And then Sam discovered a small miracle - - in the very bottom of the bag sat some beef jerky in a red plastic bag. His stomach rumbled, a far quieter rumble than the previous one. Sam decided to ignore this fact and attack the jerky.

Unfortunately, like the granola bars, it was as cold as ice.

"Well," the boy thought aloud, "I warmed up when I turned on the Device. Maybe the jerky will, too."

He extracted the small object, curious and rectangular, from the backpack and pressed the button near the bottom, then held it against his food. Just like before, it lit up with a wave display and the time, which had changed to 3:20. There was the sound of plastic crinkling, and it had warmed up to a delicious softness in just under a minute. Pleased, Sam tossed the Device back into the backpack and tore open the bag of beef jerky. The delectable aroma of freshly cooked meat wafted up to him before it was blown away by the frigid wind.

Sam popped a piece into his mouth and chewed. It may've been a vegan person's worst nightmare, but to him it tasted like heaven with barbeque sauce.

Soon enough, the bag was empty. Sam dropped it into his backpack and shrugged it onto his shoulders again. Now that the jerky had re-energized him, he felt like he could tackle the mountain again. He grinned (pieces of jerky were stuck in his teeth) and set off once more.

The creepy feeling slowly returned. As he climbed out of a snowy gully, several howls rose up into the storm. Sam frowned and picked up the pace. Whatever was making the howls was getting closer. He thought he heard apelike grunts and snorts. He looked back to make sure nothing was following him, and that was when he saw the monster.

It was indeed very much like an ape. Large and muscular, it had beady yellow eyes and a totally ripped body. White fur ran down its arms, legs, and back, though its chest was padded in tough onyx skin. The beast had a strangely pointy head and chin. It stood at least three times as tall as Sam, stepping out of the storm and leering at him dangerously. A chill ran down his spine that had nothing to do with the freezing temperatures.

"Mehee-at!" the monster roared with a sniff.

Sam gaped at it. How could a beast like that exist? It was like something out of a fantasy novel, or a creature from some strange mythology long forgotten. There was no doubt in his mind that it was indeed real - - it radiated deadly power and fear that chilled his bones.

The monster approached him almost carefully.

He turned and ran.

Grunting in excitement, the strange creature gave chase.

Sam dashed through the storm, squinting as the wind tossed little flecks of snow into his eyes and tried to impede him. The mountain was steep enough that he didn't run so much as stumbled, skidding from boulder to cliff, and sliding on loose pebbles and snow. The warmth brought on by the Device wasn't fading, something Sam was glad for; however, it didn't seem to help matters much. The enormous apelike monster was gaining ground, closing the distance between them.

He planted his right foot as firmly as he could in the snow, then jumped across a small crevice in the mountain and landed on a boulder. Behind him, the monster paused at the crevice, looked at it curiously, and then simply stepped over it with its long legs. It pounded its chest with its fists in accomplishment and again growled, "Mehee-at! Mehee-at!"

It looked down at him hungrily.

"I'm not food!" Sam called with a gulp, wind blowing in his face. The beast was taller than him even with the added height of the boulder.

"Mehee-at!" it rumbled, more insistently.

It almost sounded like the beast was asking for meat.

Sam blinked. Had it smelled his beef jerky and decided it wanted that?

"There's no more meat left," he said in a tone he hoped was brave. "I ate it all."

The monster's hungry expression morphed into anger, and it grunted, "Hooman eet all mehee-at... No mehee-at left fuhr thees po-hoor Vulcan. Vulcan eet hooman instead!"

He didn't even have time to be impressed that it could speak. _'Well, shit,' _cursed Sam, and he turned to run.

It was pointless. The Vulcan was bigger than him, it had more muscle than him, and it had far longer legs than him. Besides that, the beast also ran like an ape, using its hands to propel itself forward. In no time, it had bounded over the large rock Sam had just scrambled off of and caught him in its grasp.

Sam screamed as he was lifted quickly into the air. The monster was crushing his body with its bare hands - - with its bare _hand_. Pain shot through him. It flipped him upside down and shook him; the backpack slipped off and fell to the snow, spilling its contents everywhere. He must've forgotten to zip it back up when he put it on last.

"Let go of me!" Sam yelled in agony, struggling against the monster's iron grip. It swiveled him around and held him up so that they were looking each other in the eye. (The teen, though, was still upside down.)

"Vulcan no keen do thees," it said stupidly. "Vulcan ne-heed hooman body."

Blood was rushing to Sam's head. He groaned, "LET - - ME - - GO!"

To both his surprise and the Vulcan's, there was a flash of light and a crackle of electricity. A bolt of lightning shot from nearby the fallen backpack and through Sam's captor's arm, causing the beast to cry out in pain and let him go.

Unfortunately, because he was upside down, he landed face-first in the snow.

"Ow," he mumbled once he had pulled himself out. His entire body hurt, and he suspected this was how bugs felt when people squished them underfoot and they didn't die immediately. Sam looked at the Vulcan. It was clutching its arm and hopping around in pain, and when it let go of its arm, he could see it was charred, like it had been burned.

_'What _was _that?'_ Sam wondered. _'It was almost like magic.'_

He stumbled to the fallen backpack while the monster was distracted. Laying around it in a broken line were the apple, granola bars, and the rectangular Device, the latter of which was smoking at one side and sparking electric.

Had it somehow reacted to his desperation and released that lightning bolt?

Behind him, the Vulcan was recovering from the attack. "So..." it growled. "The hooman boy ees a weezard... Vulcan theenks he could be use-uhful fuhr uther wayees."

Sam heard the monster speak, and although he didn't quite understand, he knew he was still in danger. He picked up the Device and pointed the smoking side at the Vulcan. Another growl seemed to come from behind him, though it might've been an echo. As it lumbered towards him, Sam instinctively punched a rectangular button on the left of the side facing him.

"Get away from me!" Sam roared, anger flaring in his eyes. He didn't know where the next words came from, but he called, "Techno Discharge!"

Like before, there was a flash of light. Now, though, Sam could see that it was caused by the appearance of a light purple, glowing circle with strange designs and runes swirling inside it, hanging in midair and just touching the smoking side of the Device. A lightning bolt exploded out of the Device and through the center of the circle, then tore at the Vulcan, which attempted to dodge. The bolt, however, seemed to change direction like a homing missile. It slammed into the creature's chest with a thunderous _BABOOM!_

The monster bellowed as the electric overrode its heart. Its body shook with the strike and its eyes rolled back in its head.

Then it fell over, dead.

Sudden fatigue struck Sam, and he had to stop himself from falling over. He felt empty of energy, like a core deep within him had been drained of fuel. The cold was quickly returning.

But he wasn't out of the woods yet.

The ground shook as something came up the mountain directly behind him. Sam swiveled around, panting, only to see a second apelike, white-furred beast glaring at him.

"Hooman weezard defeated daddy Vulcan!" the Vulcan growled dangerously. "Vulcan no like hooman weezard! Vulcan theenks hooman weezard need lesson een manners!"

"Dammit," Sam panted. "There was a second one!?" He pointed the Device at the beast and punched the same button he did before, but nothing happened. The second monster raised an eyebrow and growled, then dashed to him and grabbed him. He was once again lifted into the air, squeezed until he could barely breathe.

"Good night, leetle hooman," said the Vulcan with an evil glint in its eye.

Another flash of light lit up the dark mountainside, and then Sam saw black.

* * *

**Alright! I finally completed the second chapter! I think the next one is going to be in Natsu's or perhaps Lucy's point of view, and is also going to have a description of Samwise in it, so we're finally heading into the main story. Can anyone take a guess as to what the Device is? I tried to describe it well enough that most people should realize what it is.**

Sam: Stupid Vulcan! I didn't _want_ to kill that other thing! I was just trying to protect myself!

Lucy: *sweatdrops* I don't think the monster can understand you, Sam.

Sam: EH!? Who are you!? And... why are you in a... grandfather clock...?

Leanne: ...Because she's an idiot.

**I hope you enjoyed this chapter of _Atlas: A Tale of Five Wizards_! For any new readers out there, I hope you follow and/or favorite this story. Neither action is necessary for me to continue writing, but both are highly appreciated, and following lets you get an email whenever I update! Also, don't forget to leave a review. I appreciate those even more than follows and favorites, and all it takes is a little writing on your part.**

**-TheRealEvanSG**


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